Frank Nuchereno sent a message to Gary Kelly that said:
I love Southwest Airlines and have been one of your biggest fans for years. Maybe that is why I am so disappointed in my travel experience yesterday. I have had other reasons to write in the past, particularly with some bad experiences with pets but never have.
I am in the car wash and construction business. Thankfully both have been deemed essential businesses and we have been open throughout Covid. At our construction sites a majority of the workers do not wear masks and are not particularly good at social distancing. Since we are outside I am not particularly concerned about and all of the workers have the ability to social distance most of the time and we encourage that.
At the car wash all of our employees wear masks and gloves even though we have very little or no direct contact with the public.
I was surprised to see several Southwest airline employees gathered by the boarding podium (area where you are called up to board) that were not wearing masks. I was further surprised to see that it was not required for customers to wear masks on the plain. I would say approximately 30% or more did not wear masks, maybe more on the return flight.
The first three rows were reserved to provide some sort of distancing for the attendants sitting near the cockpit. On the way home a passenger complained that his legs were so long he had to sit in the first row(he was about 6'3", I am 6' so I thought his complaint was silly.) Regardless the flight attendant allowed him to sit there but told him he had to wear a mask because of his proximity to the passenger crew. Meanwhile there were people sitting in the row across from me and directly behind with no mask. I am by no means a paranoid Covid person. I went out to dinner three times in the past week however all three restaurants had their employees wearing gloves and masks and seating was at least six feet or more apart.
Southwest has always been a leader in creativity and customer service. i was expecting creative solutions like possibly boarding from the back to the front and then exiting the normal way to help reduce people breathing on one another. I thought we might get our temperature taken as wear required to do on construction sites. How about a simple mask?
Obviously the attendants were concerned enough to block the firth three rows and require anyone near them to wear a mask.
Until you have better practices in place I will be flying American airlines.
REALLY DISAPPOINTING!!!
